When theory and fact fail to intersect – Bookworm Room. Political lessons from buildings.
Who Goes Nazi? – The Anchoress, via Assistant Village Idiot. Suggested further reading: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.
Masterminds or Muddlers? - the glittering eye.
The prototype for a mastermind would be Napoleon, someone who with a combination of brilliance, insight, savvy, guile, and the urge to power was able to bring complicated plans with many moving parts to fruition.
Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life? — The New Yorker, by Atul Gawande. And… as I see it, a complete misunderstanding of that article by Megan McArdle and most of her commentariat. That misunderstanding is further displayed in this McArdle post: Does Medicaid Kill? Though not easy to identify, there are multiple points where medicine becomes harmful rather than helpful. Part of this has to do with the way we evaluate drugs — by choosing an endpoint (ie, blood pressure reduction) without evaluating whether that leads to longer life, much less the quality of that life.
That’s enough deep thought for a while. I will now return to my regularly scheduled whining, ranting, silliness, and non-blogging.
I was reading elsewhere. Actually that also accounts for reasons #1 through #17.
The big ScienceBlogs brouhaha over selling a blog to Pepsico was fun — in the sense that watching a trainwreck can be called fun. The best roundup of links and a decent explanation of what upset many of the bloggers over at SB is Oh, Pepsi, What Has Thou Wrought? by Carl Zimmer at Discover.
At first… now other bloggers are leaving SB too. Or going on strike. This is going to expand my science blogroll, because now I can’t just use the SB blogroll to easily get to them.
I’m going to miss ScienceBlogs. It was great while it lasted.
Dustbury links to this Reuters story: Consumer group targets mcDonald’s Happy Meal toys. It starts off:
“Tempting kids with toys is unfair and deceptive, both to kids who don’t understand the concept of advertising, and to their parents, who have to put up with their nagging children,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
An even more disturbingly paranoid view of McDonald’s as a corporation (and ultimately demeaning to parents) is this from the Center’s website:
“McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner. “McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity—all this to induce children to prefer foods that may harm their health. It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction.”
Such a view of corporations requires one to think that all corporations are run by Lex Luthor clones. To what nefarious end do corporations do this? According to these types, it’s the evil bottom line.
And they are using evil mind rays to control all of us and what they really want is for all of us to live unhealthy short lives. Because in magical thinking land that improves the bottom line. Somehow.
The Assistant Village Idiot overhears some original thinking. Fancy that.
